Letters to Juliet

Gary Winick is the director of chick flicks such as 13 going on 30 and Bride Wars. Both of which were movies that would barely manage to make the cut. He also did Charlotte’s Web which was more in the kiddie genre and 6 other movies that I haven’t seen or heard of. But with Letters to Juliet, he kind of gets his direction to the proverbial next level. He does get it soppy and a bit hard to believe in between but gets the movie to feel quite good overall.

The first thing he does is get the story right. Now how many of us would have heard about the Secretaries of Juliet? I know I did not know about them. I am not a shining example of knowing everything (although I would love to believe so) but it would be fair to assume that most people did not know about the concept and it was therefore a novel story in the first place. People from all over the world can send letters to Casa di Giulietta / Juliet’s House, Via Cappello, 23, Near Piazza delle Erbe, Verona, Italy and a team of volunteers sit down at the end of every day to answer each one of them. A practice that has been in place for over 70 years today.

Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) bumps into the concept and therefore into Isabella (Luisa Ranieri), Francesca (Marina Massironi), Donatella (Lidia Biondi), Maria (Milena Vukotic) & Angelina (Luisa De Santis) who have been volunteering as the secretaries of Juliet for quite some time now. Sophie is visiting Verona for a pre-honeymoon of sorts with her husband to be – Victor (Gael García Bernal) – a superb chef but a person who doesn’t really know how to take care of Sophie. Needless to say, Sophie starts drifting away from him. The secretaries offer her an avenue to take her mind off Victor and she bumps into a letter that was left in the wall 50 years back. She does take a chance to reply to the letter – just to check on what could happen. And before you know it, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) who is pushing 70 currently, arrives in Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan). Thus begins the search for Lorenzo Bartolini – Claires long lost love of 50 years.

Letters to Juliet is a lovely movie to catch up with on a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon when you are all cuddled up in bed with your boyfriend. As mentioned earlier, it does get a bit soppy in between and the love story between Chris and Sophie is expected but comes in a bit too fast for my comfort. But Gary Winick, more than makes up in the other parts. There is a good bit of Italian humour thrown in and the performances are also quite good. Vanessa Redgrave is stunning in her role of Claire. And I have previously sung enough praises of Amanda Seyfried who continues to be one of the better actresses in recent times. Worth a dekko for sure. 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1896810265/